Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Chennai: Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Saturday denied any wrongdoing in 2G spectrum allocation and its pricing during his tenure as the Telecom Minister and alleged selective leaks of communication between him and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.

Talking to media in Chennai, he also defended Singh describing him as a "bold" and "honest" leader.

Maran said the media was making an issue of a letter by him in 2006 to the Prime Minister on spectrum pricing, connecting it to the "present scenario".

Following are details of signed deals between India and France, agreements close to completion, and possible future deals:

Signed deals:

AREVA: In a deal estimated at 7 billion euros ($ 9.3 billion), French nuclear power group Areva signed a framework agreement with state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India to provide two water pressurised reactors to a site in the western state of Maharashtra.

Construction for the reactors, the first in a series that France is expecting to supply, will start next year and operations will start by 2018. The deal includes the supply of reactor fuel for 25 years.

AIRBUS: State-owned carrier Air India and private airline Jet Airways signed contracts to lease four and 10 Airbus A330 aircraft respectively from the European group Airbus, in separate deals worth a total of 2.8 billion euros ($ 3.7 billion) based on the catalogue price.

MICHELIN: French tyre maker Michelin signed a protocol contract with the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to invest around 600 million euros in a factory. Read More